By all indications, it would seem that 14-year-old El Segundo resident Allysha Bergado is a typical teenager who loves to skateboard.

The Justin Bieber posters and her new braces belie the fact that Bergado is a rising X Games star who is developing a marketing savvy beyond her years.

“I’m starting to learn you have to promote yourself if you want yourself out there,” Bergado said.

Marketing 101.

So when Bergado takes on the X Games, it’s not just about developing sick tricks. It’s connecting with fans, appeasing sponsors and establishing her brand.

The fun part comes at events like this week’s X Games 16, where Bergado will compete in Friday’s Women’s Vert Finals at Nokia Theatre and participate in a Super Skate Park demonstration on Sunday at the Event Deck at L.A. Live.

And success will only bolster those marketing efforts.

“It’s not quite hit her yet,” said Tho Bergado, Allysha’s mother. “She’s just taking it in. At the X Games, she likes being around all the skaters and having fun.”

Yet Bergado has natural marketability and is learning how to harness it.

Bergado has edited more than 50 videos of her escapades, her way of “putting herself out there.” Even when she’s hanging out with Coach Tony Mag, Bergado said there’s a lot of time dedicated to editing videos.

Bergado has fan profiles on Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and just started an account last week on Formspring that she tries to upkeep. Her serious keyboarding proficiency (80-100 words per minute) and teenage texting skills certainly help the cause.

“Whenever there are new ads or articles about me, I try to post them on Facebook, not just statuses,” Bergado said. “I’m starting to learn how to interact with people, how to speak with people.”

All that hard work is starting to pay off.

Bergado said she has been getting recognized more often and even had her first impromptu autograph request at Woodward West Complex in Tehachapi.

“It was kind of cool. They said they saw me on TV, on the Disney Channel,” said Bergado, who was constantly mobbed for autographs during a Dew Tour event in Boston. “I’m still working on my autograph. Sometimes I’ll write a note like, `keep skating’ or something.”

Bergado is also learning to invest in herself.

Whatever limited earnings Bergado has earned from commercials for things like 7-Eleven, Disney Channel, Nickelodeon and the Skate 3 video game, she put into a new MacBook Pro to enhance her video editing.

Bergado also had some cash-flow from June 24 eighth-grade graduation from El Segundo Middle School and her June 25 birthday to make it happen.

“It has all these cool effects,” Bergado said, especially excited about the faster uploading time of her new laptop. “I’ve just started messing around with it. It’s fun.”

Bergado is realizing it can be difficult to balance it all: school, skateboarding and all the behind-the-scene efforts.

In fact, Bergado said she has only been to a vert ramp three times this summer. The problem is that El Segundo doesn’t have a true vert ramp and the closest ones – Claremont or San Diego – are hours away.

With her school, her mother’s job at an El Segundo dentist’s office and her father’s job as a Riverside correctional officer, Bergado is quickly learning to multi-task.

Her mother, Tho, said they try to get Allysha as much time as their schedules permit and that she helps with Allysha’s publicity without a true agent, at least at this point.

“A lot of people contact me by email, and I play that role,” Tho Bergado said. “I also play the role of driver. I’m like a taxi cab driver; all I need is the hat.”

Bergado, who will start at El Segundo High in the fall, has had the distinction of being the youngest competitor at the X Games for three consecutive years.

She has had back-to-back seventh-place finishes in the Women’s Vert.

Bergado said she admires perennial X Games medalist Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins and said one of her biggest thrills is hanging out with the veteran star. Hawkins was even Bergado’s chaperone at a San Jose event.

“When I first met her, she was cool, but I was scared to talk to her,” Bergado said. “But she put me at ease. She calls me Munchkin or Lil’ One. I have a lot of fun with her.”

So Bergado said she wants to do the same thing for younger skaters. She has had some one-on-one training sessions and even has served as a mentor at Woodward West, almost like a celebrity returning to give back to the community.

“It’s a pretty cool thing,” Bergado said. “I want to pass it down to younger skaters.”

Bergado admitted she used to be afraid of rollercoasters, but her mother looked at her rather incredulously.

“You don’t want to do rollercoasters, but you have no problem dropping down that vert ramp,” Tho asked her daughter.

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